Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 3.pdf/84

 mind openly and freely, shall I be in danger of my life as a traitor? If that necessity be put upon me, I thank God, by his blessing, I have learned not to stand in fear of him who can only kill the body. If the question be whether I must be traitor to man or perjured to God, I will be faithful to my creator. And whatsoever shall befall me from popular rage or my own weakness, I must leave it to that Almighty Being and to the justice and honor of my judges.

My lords, I conjure you not to make yourselves so unhappy as to disable your lordships and your children from undertaking the great charge and trust of this commonwealth. You inherit that trust from your fathers. You are born to great thoughts. You are nursed for the weighty employments of the kingdom. But if it be once admitted that a counselor, for delivering his opinion with others at the council board, candidé et casté, with candor and purity of motive, under an oath of secrecy and faithfulness, shall be brought into question, upon some misapprehension or ignorance of law—if every word that he shall speak from sincere and noble intentions shall be drawn against him for the attainting of him, his children and posterity—I know not (under favor I speak it) any wise or noble person of fortune who will, upon such perilous and unsafe terms, adventure to be counselor to the king. Therefore, I beseech your lordships so to look on me that my misfortune may not bring an inconvenience to yourselves.